Mysteries of science reach rural students

Buoyed by their success in teaching science through experiments to government high school students in the villages for more than two years, a motley group of professionals from Dakshina Kannada now want to offer scholarships to poor meritorious students. The group, comprising college teachers, research scholars, doctors and postgraduate students, will select some class 10 students, who show a keen interest, and pay their fees for the PU course from the academic year 2016-17.

They even want to teach basic science to students in government high schools in Bengaluru Rural district from August.

It all started in November 2012 when 25 like-minded people got together to take basic science education to rural students. Vivekananda College in Puttur agreed to share its laboratory equipment for experiments. The members turned up on Saturdays and Sundays to teach the children. “They are also taught banking transactions, such as how to fill a challan, transfer money, use debit cards and so on,” said Shreesha Bhat, a member of the group who is conducting research in Physics at Mangalore University. Children are also exposed to operating computers. As the number of members in the group rose to 40, they formed the Akanksha Trust last year and opened a Facebook account (www.facebook.com/nammaakanksha). Through Facebook friends they began to get contributions, which helped Akanksha purchase laboratory equipment. The Trust has about Rs. 80,000 in its kitty now. A.P. Radhakrishna, head, Department of Physics, St. Philomena College, Puttur, is instrumental in motivating the group, said Mr. Bhat who is also the managing trustee of Akanksha. Now students of those schools have begun participating in science project competitions.